


Fire on the Mountain

by atama



Category: Black Panther (2018), Black Panther - Fandom
Genre: Frenemies, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-29 01:22:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13916352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atama/pseuds/atama
Summary: During their teenage years, M'Baku and T'Challa meet and become as friendly as the Wakandan crown prince and future Jabari leader could possibly be. Their relationship changes significantly as they deal with T'Chaka's death, T'Challa's kingship, and Erik Killmonger's arrival in Wakanda.





	Fire on the Mountain

T’Challa clung to the boulder as he peeked at the scene unfolding in front of him. If he got caught, he would be in even more trouble than he had initially anticipated. He could practically see T’Chaka’s face etched in disapproval as the king berated T’Challa for escaping his studies to explore the city. Who could blame him though? Daily eight-hour-long lessons about geography, world politics, physics, languages, combat, and diplomacy would send any twelve-year-old on a quest for freedom. T’Challa wanted to be good. He really did – especially because he knew how much his father expected from him- but it was so boring to spend all his time focused on skills he would need for a distant future. He wanted to enjoy things now. Everyone else was. Every time T’Challa joined his father on a tour of Wakanda, he saw kids his age playing in the streets with their friends or relaxing with their loved ones. Their lives were not divided into two hour blocks of training and studying. 

Today, in his English grammar book, he had seen a photo of a group of children having a picnic. T’Challa still had no idea what had come over him at that moment, but he had suddenly decided that he wanted to have a picnic too. It was a bright sunny day, and T’Challa longed to feel the warm caress of the sun’s rays on his skin. He quickly grabbed his afternoon snack from the small table in the corner, looked around to make sure that the Dora Milaje would not notice his departure, and clambered out of the window. His eight years of capoeira lessons came to good use, and he made a perfect landing on the clay path. 

In a better mood than he had ever been, T’Challa skipped toward the waterfall. It was his favorite place in the world. Nothing looked better than the reflective rainbow sheen where sunlight met rivulets of falling water. With crossed legs, T’Challa relaxed against the warm hardness of the cliff overlooking the water. No books. No lessons. No duty. No tradition. Just the water and his fruits. 

When he heard the sound of approaching footsteps, T’Challa assumed that someone from the palace had noticed his disappearance and come to find him. He quickly hid behind a large boulder. It wouldn’t help conceal him since his Kimoyo beads could still be easily tracked by palace security, but it wouldn’t do to make this too easy for them. Maybe they would pity him and allow him stay for a while longer. Sometimes, T’Challa couldn’t help but resent the demands of his position in the world and Wakanda. 

What he saw next was startling. A long line of boys about his age stomped out of a cave one level above T’Challa’s boulder. They approached the water while singing an unfamiliar song – even the language seemed foreign to T’Challa’s well-exposed ears. It wasn’t Wakandan, Hausa, Yoruba, French, English, Xhosa, or Swahili. He leaned forward to get a better look. The boys wore grass skirts, and large patches of white ceremonial markings decorated their dark skin. An audible gasp slipped out before T’Challa could contain it. The black claw markings on their chests, sparse traditional clothing, and foreign language. It suddenly seemed obvious who these boys were. Jabari. 

Two of the Jabari boys faced off against each other, and the other boys formed a circle around them. The stomping resumed among the boys in the outer circle as the two boys settled into wrestling stances, circling one another as each warily watched for an opportunity to make the first attack. 

T’Challa decided to use the momentary lull in activity to properly study the fighting boys. One of them was much more slightly built than the other. The other wrestler towered over him, and T’Challa briefly wondered in the small smirk that lingered on the younger boy’s lips was there because he knew he had been set up to lose terribly in front of his peers. Unless some miracle occurred, this wrestling match would end very quickly. Maybe that was why they were taking so long to begin. Just as T’Challa readied himself for the end of this match and the beginning of the more interesting ones, he heard a giant splash. He must have missed something in the thirty seconds of day dreaming because the larger boy was now stretched out in the mid-calf-level water, and the smaller boy had perched on top of his torso – mimicking T’Challa’s cross-legged pose. His smirk had blossomed into a full smile. The way it lit his face up, the joy that radiated from his eyes, visible from T’Challa’s position on the cliff - It was beautiful. T’Challa suddenly wanted to know more about this boy. 

His eyes remained fixed on that face, watching as the victor helped his competitor stand with an added genial pat on the back and disappeared into the larger circle of boys. The commotion that marked the beginning of the second wrestling match made it even for difficult for T’Challa to find his victor with the beautiful smile again. Ignoring the deep disappointment that he felt at that moment, T’Challa settled in to watch the rest of the Jabari boys wrestle one another. 

Jabari. They looked so... normal. T’Challa had no idea what he had expected the Jabari to look like after learning about them in his history lessons and tales from Okoye and Nakia – Dora Milaje in training and two of his three friends within the palace. (The third was W’Kabi, and they only saw each other at the weekly council meetings where they sat together behind their fathers and had hushed conversations about animal care and politics.) T’Challa had constructed a mental image of the Jabari that was imbued with unordinary mysticism, and it was difficult to reconcile the very human sounds of laughter, excited shouts, and bodies hitting water with this image. 

He almost wanted to join them in the water, but he didn’t know how they would react. He still had his kimoyo beads on, and it would be easy to pinpoint his Wakandan origins. They couldn’t come off though, because he had promised Ramonda that he would never remove them – he didn’t want to make her worry, especially now that he was away from the secure palace. Before T’Challa could ponder the pros and cons of wrestling Jabari boys further, a strange hand covered his mouth and pulled him even further behind the boulder. T’Challa turned his head and met the serious gaze of the boy who had just won the wrestling match.

He was bigger than he had looked in the wrestling circle - about T’Challa’s height and build, and T’Challa was taller than many of his age mates at the palace. The boys remaining in the circle must be giants.

“Who are you, and why are you spying on us?”

The boy’s voice sounded like velvet felt. T’Challa barely noticed that the boy spoke Wakandan or even the aggressive quality of the question as he quietly took in the stranger seated so close to him. No one ever got so close to him so quickly. Usually, the Dora Milaje would get in the way at the six feet mark. It felt weird to be next to this boy, but also oddly comfortable. 

A frown ghosted over the boy’s smooth forehead.

“So, are you going to answer my question or should I take a nap while I wait for you to figure out where you are and what you’re doing?”

This time, T’Challa could see that a quick answer was the only way he could possibly extricate himself from this situation. The Jabari boy didn’t seem dangerous, but the warnings he had heard about the Jabari and their distaste for Wakandans – especially the royal family – echoed through his mind. 

“I just came here to eat” 

He pointed at the fruit peels behind him and waited for the boy’s gaze to follow his hand. 

“I didn’t know this was private property?” T’Challa said combatively. This may have been a stupid thing to do, but he was T’Challa, son of T’Chaka and future king of Wakanda. He would cower to no one. 

“There’s a sign-up sheet for waterfall reservations. See?” 

The boy sounded so serious that T’Challa felt a confused frown spread over his features as he wracked his mind for any mentions of reservations that he may have missed in his lessons. It was only until he saw the Jabari boy pointing at a part of the mountain with scrawls of numbers, names, shapes, and something that looked suspiciously like a crude sketch of an ejaculating penis that T’Challa realized that the boy was joking. He wasn’t amused, but the boy apparently was. That smile had come out again, and if T’Challa wasn’t so annoyed about being made fun of, he would have been transfixed by its beauty. 

His frown deepened as he watched the boy grab a banana from T’Challa’s pile. He muttered under his breath “Yes, Jabari boy. You can have some of my fruit. You are welcome”

T’Challa was thoroughly ignored again and resigned himself to watching the other boy eat his banana. When the banana peel joined the garbage pile, the Jabari boy asked “That thing on your wrist. Technology? What does it do?”

T’Challa looked down at his wrist again. He had worn Kimoyo beads all his life. It was so normal to him that he was almost startled by the idea of a teenage boy not knowing what they were. He had heard that the Jabari detested technology, but this still seemed unimaginable to him. Reaching down to roll one of the solid purple beads between his fingers, he began to respond.  
“This one is the AV bead. I can pull up anything on the Wakandan database and play videos on it.”

The boy looked even more confused, and T’Challa realized that he didn’t know what the database was. Maybe he didn’t even know what videos were? They played on billboards in all the Wakandan public spaces, but T’Challa couldn’t remember ever seeing a Jabari during his infrequent tours of the cities. Maybe they just stayed in their caves? He decided to try to show the boy how the kimoyo beads worked instead.

“What is your favorite place in Wakanda?”

A shapely eyebrow arched in question before T’Challa received a response. “I like the waterfalls”.

T’Challa quickly pulled up the holographic display and searched for a video of the waterfalls. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the boy edge away from the beads before catching himself and fixing a determinedly nonchalant expression on his face. 

The video began to play. The waterfalls looked as beautiful in motion on the screen as they had looked that afternoon. T’Challa couldn’t help but be enchanted by its allure again. 

The boy, on the other hand, was not. 

“So you use it to look at places you could just walk to? Is this why you Wakandans are so soft? No exercise? I can go there now and get a drink of water too. Can your fancy beads make water?”

T’Challa was annoyed now. 

“I can also talk to people from afar with my beads. I talk to my sister in Birnin Zana when I’m in Birnin T’Chaka. Can you do that with your relatives?”

The boy shrugged. “no, but I don’t need to. Everyone I know lives here.” He pointed at the caves. “Why would I need to travel far to talk to them? Maybe you should learn to enjoy your family’s company when they’re closer to you?”

T’Challa had no idea why he suddenly felt so defensive of his technology or why he wanted to prove their necessity so badly. He seized the health bead.  
“Look! This one can monitor your health at any point.” T’Challa pulled up a holographic image of his vitals. “It can spot any issues in your organ systems the moment they arise and alert the nearest Wakandan hospitals during emergencies.”

The boy snorted. “I’m not dumb enough to provide this kind of information to anyone who touches that pretty bead of yours. What happens in my body is my business.”

While T’Challa was still channeling all his royal behavior classes in an attempt to suppress his anger, he felt a flash of heat against his wrist. His beads had warmed up. The Dora Milaje must have tracked his location by now. They were probably on their way to find him. He could still hear the sounds of the Jabari boys playing in the water, and he couldn’t help but worry about how events would turn out if the Dora Milaje suddenly showed up. Even if nothing really went wrong, they would scare the boys and interrupt their wrestling matches, and if something did go wrong... T’Challa didn’t want to take any chances, so he decided to leave the waterfall and head for the palace. Hopefully, he would meet the Dora Milaje halfway, and they would take him home to face the music.

T’Challa turned to say his goodbyes to the obstinate Jabari boy. His attempt to share his love for technology had been doomed from the start, but he was still glad to have had this interaction. If he had more time, maybe he would have asked some questions about Jabari traditions too. He wondered whether he would find them here if he came back some other time. Palace security was sure to be more vigilant, but T’Challa now had a solid reason to escape. 

“I have to go.”

“Oh don’t tell me you’re that angry about how I pointed out that common sense is a sufficient substitute for all your Wakandan technology. It’s just a fact.” The boy retorted. T’Challa didn’t miss the flash of disappointment that ghosted over the Jabari boy’s face; It filled him with a warm feeling that he couldn’t quite identify.

“no, I have to go back to the palace. The Dora Milaje are already searching for me.”

“Palace? Dora Milaje? Do you have a fever?”

T’Challah was already gathering the fruit peels so that he could dispose of them properly on his way home. 

“I don’t have time to explain right now, but my name is T’Challa. I am the crown prince of Wakanda, and I abandoned my lessons to have a picnic here. The palace guards are already looking for me.”

His vigorous dusting of his purple robes was interrupted when the Jabari boy let out a loud bark of laughter. The laughter continued for at least ten seconds longer than T’Challa was willing to accommodate it.  
“Yeah, T’Challa. It’s so nice to meet you. I am thy father, T’Chaka”

The boy burst out laughing again, and although the Jabari boys were still loudly chanting in the water, T’Challa was almost concerned that he would be discovered before he had the chance to run off. But, he still felt the need to prove that he was who he said he was. Call it pride or a need to show this boy that he was an important person afterall. He could still feel the warmth of the tracking device on his wrist – he had about three minutes left before the Dora Milaje caught up with him.

As quick as humanly possible, T’Challa pulled up his holographic screen and searched for a video compilation his eight-year-old sister, Shuri, had uploaded to the database a few months ago. It was titled T’Challa embarrassing moments and it had a few clips of T’Challa during the tours with his father. When she first uploaded it, he had pitched a fit that was not becoming for a fourteen-year-old crown prince. After the million view threshold and three days spent alone in his room, he had given up because his parents wouldn’t budge. It was all “net neutrality, T’Challa. We can’t abuse our power and remove things from the database just because we don’t like it” and “The people seem to be enjoying it. Think about it as fostering unity”. At least the video would prove to be useful today. 

He quickly skipped to the clip of him at the market during a tour last year. He watched video T’Challa stumble and fall off the gazebo overlooking the crowd of Wakandan people, only to be rescued by his father’s quick reflexed and strong arms. 

“See? King T’Chaka is my father. It was nice to meet you, but I really have to go now.”

Without waiting for a response, T’Challa began climbing off the cliff. Just as he hit the ground, he looked up and met the Jabari boy’s contemplating gaze. A slight frown had settled on the boy’s face, but when he noticed that T’Challa was also looking at him, he nodded at the crown prince and pointed to his chest.

“M’Baku”

As T’Challa ran toward the palace, the word ricocheted within his mind. M’Baku. What an interesting name for an interesting person. Without evidence or planning, T’Challa knew that their paths would cross again.


End file.
